This Labor Day weekend marked the last swim of the Polar Bears’ 80th season, and without a cloud in the sky, 119 people gathered and waded into the water at Inkwell Beach at 7:30 am Monday morning. Swimmers were encouraged to submerge up to their chest, not only because the water was warmer than the air but also because, according to volunteer organizers, it prevented any outfit mishaps.
The group rejects the term “plunge,” which implies a quick jump in the ocean and is often called a “polar plunge”; instead, the Polar Bears focus on sharing an experience with one another in the water through sustained activity.
“The notion of a plunge is not what we do,” Caroline Hunter, an organizer of the swims, said. “We go into the water and commune with the water.”
The African American swim and water aerobics group that gathers every morning, regardless of weather, from the Fourth of July through Labor Day, saw record attendance this summer, with one day in August drawing a crowd of more than 400 participants. “It’s grown to proportions beyond our wildest dreams,” Hunter said. “Our record is 491, and I hope we never break that. I try to tell people it’s not about the number of people.”
To start the last class of the season, Kim Wright Jones waded into the center of the circle and got everyone’s blood flowing, instructing people to jump, kick, and do leg circles. Polar Bears from ages 12 to 80 were moving around in the water at Inkwell, smiling, laughing, and slowly but surely, warming up.
Hunter has been a part of the Polar Bears group for 38 years and just turned 80 years old on Sunday. She notes that the original members were deep-water swimmers, some of whom she knew. “I just happened to be born — I don’t know if that’s fate — the year the Polar Bears started,” Hunter said.
The original Polar Bears started back in 1946 as an African American swim club. The group was mostly younger people working on the Island who stayed at the guest house of Myrtle O’Brien, a Black woman who owned two properties where the Tivoli Inn is now located, according to Hunter. She encouraged all of her guests to swim in the morning, and she wrote their names on white porcelain coffee cups with nail polish and called them Polar Bears, a name that remains after 80 years. When the group first came to be, the spot where they swim today was the only spot on the five-mile stretch of public beach where Black swimmers could enjoy the water.
“This was started during segregation, and so people need to understand that even on the Vineyard, people were segregated by race, by color,” said Hunter. “And we’re better now, but you can’t deny that history … we hope. I should say we hope we’re better now. It’s not clear whether we’re better now.”
Hunter said that Gloria Wong, a Polar Bear who passed away two years ago at 95, would share stories of sitting around O’Brien’s potbellied stove drinking coffee out of those porcelain cups to warm up after a swim.
By the time Hunter joined, the original young Polar Bears were professionals who continued to return to the Island seasonally and get into the water at Inkwell, and the exercise circle was added for people who weren’t deep-ocean swimmers or were non-swimmers. The deep-ocean group is still there, however, and every morning they wave to the circle closer to the shore on the way back from their swim.
“In terms of what it means to be a Polar Bear, it is to honor those original traditions, which come out of the Black community, which is welcoming, which is honoring our ancestors, which is the fellowship, which is the kindness, which is the positive energy,” Hunter said.
The class isn’t all water aerobics. There was also a moment of silence reserved to look out onto the horizon, feel the sun, and set intentions for the day. Volunteer Anne Elliot explained that every person in the water was carrying something heavy with them, every person had experienced loss, and every person needed to decide who they wanted to be that day, because you only got a day at a time, and sometimes not even that.
“We come for that glory in the water. We come for the turnaround. Face the sun. Face that rising. Be quiet with yourself,” said Hunter.
Toward the end of the class, the group was instructed to form two circles and count off numbers, not only to get a head count of how many people were there but also because a dance was approaching. Each person whose number was called added a move. Another volunteer entered the middle of the inner circle and began rattling off numbers, and each person tacked on a punch, jump, clap, or waddle to the routine.
“I want to twist it out, I want to twist it out, I want to twist it out, I want to twist it out,” the group chanted in unison, twisting their hips around under the water.
At the end of the session, the Polar Bears were instructed to practice what they preach: give back to their local food pantry, tip their servers, and be a part of the community.
“As someone who knew the original group, I insist that we talk about the history of who started the Polar Bears. We’re serious about the community that we’re creating, one that gives back. We talk about giving to the food pantry, tipping your servers, not just here on the Island but being that person everywhere you are, and treating people on land the way we treated people in the water, with kindness and acceptance of whoever they are,” Hunter said.
To mark 80 years of the Polar Bears, there were celebrations across the Island this summer. There was a senior luncheon where three 90-year-old Polar Bears spoke about their time and their family’s experience on Martha’s Vineyard; Hyatt Hotel Corporation honored the group with a reception in August; there was a fireside chat with the Trumpet Chicks, a group of young Black musicians; two performances of African folktale at the Strand Theatre; an annual concert at Ocean Park; and an exhibit at Cousin Rose Gallery featuring work inspired by the Polar Bears.
Valerie Cooper, a Polar Bear for 25 years and the unofficial Polar Bear archivist who runs the Facebook group where people can stay updated on the weather and goings-on of the group, remembers her first time in the water. She said the chill was nothing compared to the rocks on the shoreline. The leader at the time, Eleanor Hughes, encouraged her to walk in anyway and get past the rocks, telling her the sand would be soft on the other side.
“And she was right,” Cooper said. “Once I got in, it was magic. It was heaven, and I’m a water baby anyway. And I had this instructor that was gently convincing me to come, and the class was starting. I was like, ‘Oh boy, what did I sign up for?’ But I never stopped going for the past 20 years. I go every single day.
“Social media has sensationalized it to a point where the Polar Bears, I think, are viewed as a thing you want to just check the box for, but that wasn’t what it was for us,” Cooper added.
The Polar Bears have been described by some as a sisterhood, and while Cooper understands that description, she points out that there are fundamental differences. “The difference between [this group and] a sorority, where everybody is a woman and everybody is under the same college, is, the [Polar Bears include] people from different places of the world — there are different ethnicities, different ages, genders,” Cooper said. “And that to me is just exciting to experience, because at the end of the day, you’re really getting in there, whether you realize it or not, to work out.
“The primary benefit that I like to talk about is the workout, quite honestly, and the importance of that, for women, for African Americans, for everyone, really overall. Health is wealth, and then secondarily, through that I made friends,” said Cooper.
On Monday, the last day of the season, 119 people left the water an hour after they entered, instructed to hold hands on their way out and move slowly so as not to fall on the rocks of the shoreline. Many ran to their towels, as the brisk September air whipped around them. Everyone was invited to eat breakfast that was set up on a table on the sidewalk. Hunter pointed out that regardless of the amount of people, everyone is always fed.
“It’s loaves and fishes,” Hunter said.
